


distantly, detachedly

by pudgy puk (deumion)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Introspection, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26483035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deumion/pseuds/pudgy%20puk
Summary: The Coerthan winter is a dangerous thing.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	distantly, detachedly

**Author's Note:**

> old content reposted because it's probably gonna be near halloween before i have the time to write new content. drividot is my ffxiv pc/oc, a duskwight who grew up in rural parts of northern coerthas.

The most terrifying thing about Coerthan winters, Drividot thought distantly, detachedly, wasn’t the wind shocking you breathless, pulling the air from your mouth and scraping it from your lungs like a frosted razor. It wasn’t the weight of the snow caving in roofs, breaking trees, filling the roadways and defying attempts to control or conquer it, needing to do nothing more than _be_ to drain the strength and will from any struggling traveler. Nor was it even the privation, even the omnipresence, even the vanishing of the sun behind a wall of clouds as dully white as the ground, and not even how just one gust of wind in the fifth umbral moon filled the nose with the smell of the cold, announcing itself as it slipped past his coat and invited itself into his bones like it had never left.

Distantly, detachedly, he knew the most terrifying thing was when the Coerthan winter settled into the eyes.

Everything froze in the Coerthan winter—and the frozen limbs would turn black and wither and be hacked off, but the frozen eye crystalized into a lens of great clarity, superb focus, seeing with a mathematical perfection. It evaluated quickly, clearly, and one’s companion became, distantly, detachedly, a sum of strong legs and strong back subtracted by too fat to not tire too quickly. Then, one’s chocobo, beloved in the summer, was mentally razor-sliced into a summation of how much meat would keep for how long in the winter. And a unit divided by cowardice into a crew not to be trusted, look at _that_ one’s sullen expression toying too much with his dagger and _this_ one’s overfond of his hip flask, never take the ice lens off them in case of mutiny, for they’re the ones to be killed first. The frozen eye, inwardly focused, saw itself and only the sharp, terrible truths that would preserve that self. Family, friends, lovers, all turned into assets and baggage, lists of pros and cons assembled distantly, detachedly, in the face of the cold that not even dragonfire could thaw, not for three years since. This was the terror of Coerthan winters, he thought as he chopped the damp firewood distantly, detachedly: not the storm outside, but the perfect, calm clarity inside.

Distantly, detachedly, because the harvest was already done, and the cold was already here.

**Author's Note:**

> /screams in dissertation


End file.
